Latin Poetry in the Ancient Greek Novels by Jolowicz Daniel;

Author:Jolowicz, Daniel; [Jolowicz, Daniel]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Oxford University Press USA - OSO
Published: 2021-03-21T00:00:00+00:00

In her first speech too, Dido had invoked her tears as part of her petition (per … has lacrimas, 4.314). Both women express surprise at the failure of their tears (fletu … nostro; τὰ ὄμματα δακρύοντα … δάκρυα) to batter their men into submission (κατέκλασϵ; uictus), and couch their utterances as part of a series of rhetorical questions that begin with a negative (or implicitly negative) interrogative particle (οὐ … ; num … ?).37 Given the dacryphilia of Clitophon (discussed in Section 4.9), the emphasis on Vergilian tears here is unsurprising. Moreover, the Latin tradition governing the characterization of Aeneas and Jason offers several precedents for Melite’s attribution of perfidy (ἄπιστϵ), foreignness (βάρβαρϵ), and banditry (λῃστῶν; λῃστής) to Clitophon that, in their combination, are absent from the surviving Greek tradition: in the Aeneid, Amata refers to Aeneas as a ‘perfidious bandit’ (perfidus praedo, 7.362), and the Trojan women pray to Pallas Athene to destroy Aeneas, whom they describe as a ‘Phrygian pirate’ (Phrygii praedonis, 11.484); and Medea in Ovid’s Heroides reproaches Jason as a ‘foreign bandit’ (peregrinus latro, 12.111).

Achilles and Vergil trade on the haziness of the connubial status obtaining between the two partners. It is never entirely clear whether Melite or Dido are officially married to their men, whether ‘marriage’ serves rather as a figure of speech for sexual relations, or indeed whether it means one thing to the female partner and another to the male. When Satyrus first pitches to Clitophon the idea of relations with Melite, he is explicit that he is not suggesting that Clitophon should become her ‘husband’ (ἄνδρα, 5.11.6). Shortly afterwards, Melite and Clitophon exchange oaths in the Temple of Isis, including a promise that she will make him her ‘husband’ (ἄνδρα), which Clitophon refers to as a ‘covenant’ (τῶν συνθηκῶν, 5.14.2–3). From this point, their union is repeatedly labelled a ‘marriage’ (γάμος) by all those involved (Melite, Clitophon, Satyrus, Leucippe), although the sense often appears to be coterminous with physical sex.38 Indeed, Clitophon and Melite question the legitimacy of their marriage on the basis of the fact that it has not been consummated (5.20.2–3), and, towards the end of her first speech, Melite derisively refers to her ‘shadow of a marriage’ (τῶν γάμων ἡ σκιά, 5.25.8). A similar confusion vexes the status of the relationship between Dido and Aeneas, a confusion that is itself reflected in the scholarship.39 Dido persuades herself that the ominous ministrations in the cave during the storm constitute a legitimate marriage, although Vergil hints that this might be a psychological defence mechanism by which to assuage her guilt over Sychaeus: ‘She calls it “marriage”, and with that name veils her sin’ (‘coniugium’ uocat, hoc praetexit nomine culpam, 4.172). In her first speech, she twice refers to the clasping of right hands (data dextera, 4.307; dextram tuam, 4.314), which symbolically reflects the promise and acceptance of marriage,40 as well as more overtly to their marital union (per conubia nostra, per inceptos hymenaeos, 4.316). In response, Aeneas explicitly denies the existence

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